Language is the most powerful tool of human intelligence. It allows communication, representation, interpretation of the environment, reflection, problem solving and the development of knowledge, in addition to being an element of cultural identity. Until now, artificial intelligence (AI) speaks its own programming languages and, mainly, English, the predominant language in the technological field. The rest of the languages, for the most part, are translated, generating errors and limitations in their results. Spain wants to close this gap that affects 500 million Spanish speakers in the world and has already signed an agreement with Microsoft for the development of native AI in Spanish. This Friday, IBM has joined this crusade and incorporates its artificial intelligence and supercomputing platforms to this advance, which will include co-official languages, and the development of new materials for semiconductors.
It is not just that conversation applications are more precise in interacting with Spanish speakers: the key is that artificial intelligence, which allows, according to Hazem Nabih, director of technology for the Middle East at Microsoft, “an increase in productivity in any company between 30% and 50%”, reaches everyone who speaks Spanish (6% of the world's population) without leaving behind small and medium-sized companies or people with limited knowledge of English.
It is also fundamental for what the Spanish Minister of Digital Transformation, José Luis Escrivá, defines as “strategic technological sovereignty”, an independence that he considers “crucial for critical sectors of the economy or security.” “AI places us on the threshold of a new industrial revolution, with a very significant potential impact in terms of productivity gains for a large number of economic sectors, and in the improvement of public services for our citizens,” he stated. the minister
The agreement will also promote the implementation of an effective digital administration that allows filing the income tax return or accessing services at all times through interaction with a machine by voice and in writing. Or for the incorporation of artificial intelligence into healthcare, education and even the administration of justice.
On February 19, Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, signed an agreement with the Spanish Government to collaborate in this crusade and quadruple its investment to exceed 1.8 billion euros in two years, the largest of the 37 years of presence of the company. company in Spain. This Friday, Darío Gil, global vice president of IBM and director of the research division, has signed another agreement with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and Escrivá to make their programming technology, as well as their tools and services, available to this project. AI infrastructure.
IBM will collaborate on the development of large language models (LLM), such as those now used by ChapGPT (Open AI) or Gemini (Google), and small language models (SLM). The former are complex, use more parameters (trillions) and are more difficult and expensive to train. But they are essential for the development of complicated tasks that involve a creative outlet. The second, less sophisticated, are used for simpler solutions and are key to specifying the effectiveness of search engines, such as Google's Bert, for small and medium-sized businesses or to expand the community of AI creators and developers.
The development of artificial intelligence in Spanish implies a difficulty due to the diversity of speech among its 500 million users. Darío Gil affirms that they are prepared: “There is no problem. In the same way that there are models trained in different languages, a model can be trained in the different languages of a certain language. The difficulty lies not so much in mixing different languages, but in getting enough examples of each of those languages so that they are all represented in the same way. In this sense, the capacity that we have developed at IBM to create models from an open community is the best weapon there is to ensure the correct development of that model.”
Nor does the vice president of IBM believe that the lesser presence of Spanish as a technological language is an added difficulty. “The technological tradition (or lack thereof) of a given language, be it Spanish or any other, is not very relevant when generating these models. The relevant thing is to get enough texts in that language to train the model and in Spanish there are many, and those that are missing to gain knowledge in a certain Spanish language or another, we can achieve it thanks to the open community approach to which they have committed the Spanish Government and IBM.”
The “open community” that Darío Gil insists on is one of the keys to IBM's proposal, which focuses on programming development compatible with technologies outside the brand and accessible to any member of the community to which it is directed. . “This collaborative effort aims to benefit the public sector and small and medium-sized businesses,” the company explains. “It will be open, of course,” confirms the company's research manager.
You can follow EL PAÍS Technology in Facebook and x or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#IBM #joins #development #native #artificial #intelligence #Spanish
